


keep running like the world never ends

by xshe



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Jealousy, Masturbation, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 22:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3398702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xshe/pseuds/xshe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bad habit, a lifelong one - running away and hoping his thoughts won't follow him. It never works, never has, and still doesn't tonight. He doesn't know why he bothers.</p><p>Alternately: Cullen gets jealous, drunk, sad, and jerks off. In that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep running like the world never ends

He's not sure how he got back, or how he manages to climb up the stairs and into his office without attracting unnecessary attention, but he does. He's even able to sign off on the evening's reports - hopes the ink droplets and his sloppier-than-usual initials don't give away his drunkenness - but the letters are blurred, and at the end of each word he's lost again. Eventually he realizes that he'd be just as useless sober, and the feeling behind the thought propels him to toss off his mantle and start up the ladder. A bad habit, a lifelong one - running away and hoping his thoughts won't follow him. It never works, never has, and still doesn't tonight. He doesn't know why he bothers.

  
Shrugs off his coat before he flops onto his bed, boots dangling over the edge. Hears the chains on his boots clink. A small mercy that he didn't wear his breastplate and gauntlets to the tonight, he supposes. He'd wanted to seem... less. Less commander, less complicated, less... himself, maybe? Wanted to be simple, wanted to feel at ease, wanted her to laugh and smile like she did around them. Him. His brow twists. Not that it mattered what he tried to be, now. It had probably never mattered. Why would it have? It was too much to ask from the start. He'd wanted it anyway.

  
Riding his feelings, he stuffs his hand down his pants like a fucking schoolboy and grabs himself before he acknowledges the flare of guilt at what he's doing. He shouldn't, not only is it incredibly inappropriate, it's pathetic. Yet, to his shame, it doesn't take too long for the brandy in his veins to team up with his proclivity to emotional self-destruction, and together they wear down his resolve in record time. It doesn't matter. He's too drunk and he feels too shitty to care. Fuck it. He gives up, gives in, just this bit, just right now, just tonight, and lets himself remember.

  
She was so, so beautiful.

  
Laughing, flushed from her drinks - _how many had she had?_ \- and the heat of too many people pressed close together in a hazy tavern. Healthy, vigorous, warm and alive, alive, alive. In the weeks after he carried her lifeless body back to camp, that had become his favorite feature. The candles had given her a glow, brought out her cheeks.

  
She'd looked directly at him from across the room when he arrived, and he saw the beginnings of her smile right before Varric ambushed him with a tipsy "Didn't think you'd show up, Curly!" He'd been lying. Varric knew, of course Varric knew, _the Inquisitor will be there_ , he'd sung, drawing out each syllable. Varric knew he'd come and exactly _why_ he would come. He should have known that nothing good ever came of Varric's prodding and teasing.

  
The night wore on, and as the minutes and hours and years passed he felt himself losing all hope of even talking with her. He had sat with Cassandra and Blackwall, talking idly and trying to seem as if he wasn't staring at her. He shouldn't have come. Drinking, drinking, much more than was proper. She had been surrounded by Bull's Chargers, the group tight knight and laughing loudly. Her thighs pressed tightly against his - the Lieutenant. Aclassi. A good man. Cullen couldn't begrudge him. Shouldn't begrudge him, anyway. They'd talked all night, he'd gotten her drinks, she'd laughed and he'd blushed and Cullen had stood up, stammered out an excuse and bit back his guilt when her eyebrows had quirked at him, Aclassi against her side, and Varric had yelled "So soon, Curly?"

  
He'd made an ass out of himself, and he can't help rolling his eyes alone in his room. The Commander finally socializes, sits in a corner, and stutters back to his room too early and too drunk. Typical. And now he was alone, while she was probably still with him. They'd probably left by now. Together. His traitorous mind provides an image immediately, and Cullen closes his eyes and gives it free reign. A dark room. Probably his. Definitely his. Her cheeks would still be pink, the tips of her ears red. Her breath hitches and sighs as he presses over her and she grabs his head between her hands and tangles her fingers in his hair. Her eyes half closed, her thighs on his hips, and Aclassi smiles against her mouth.

  
Only, it's not Aclassi anymore, is it?

  
He sets his jaw and tightens his hand, caves in to the image. Them, him, her, blood thrumming under her skin beneath his hands. She'd whisper to him, bite his lip, smile at him, pull back, teasing, the way she always teases, makes him blush and stumble to catch up to her. At least here, in this, he can and he does, he reflects her smile and bites her back and whispers to her and makes her turn pink until she huffs hot breath into his cheek and abandons the teasing, pulling his hair and her scowl barely covers a smirk. He'd kiss her again, over and over, he'd kiss her breathless, he'd kiss her until she forgot about Aclassi, Aclassi, fucking Aclassi, until her knuckles turned white in his hair and she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. He wants her so much. He wants it all.

  
He wants her feet tangled with his under the chess table in the garden, he wants to kiss her head while she slouches over reports half asleep . He wants to hold her hand. He wants her to sign her letters back with 'forever yours', because it's true, even now. He wants to hear about her childhood and show her the statue in Honnleath. He wants to wake up to her stealing his blankets, he wants the quiet concern when she'd asked "is this what _you_ want?", he wants to hug her so hard he pulls her into his chest and can't tell where she ends and he begins. And she... she'd want it too.

  
She'd call his name across the yard, she'd tease him and worry about him and make sure he slept. She'd would smile at him and press her forehead to his and cling to his shoulders when they made love at night. She'd whisper his name, she'd hold him tight and her glances would actually mean "Yes, me too." She'd press against him and curl her legs around his hips and be breathless and gasping but it was okay, he'd talk for both of them, he'd hold her face in his hands and he'd whisper _yes yes you're so beautiful I love you I love-_

  
That does him in, and he keeps the image tight in his mind as his body goes rigid and he comes. He winds down, feels his blood rush through his head, and all at once he's aware of how cold it is in the room, how dark it is, how loudly the wind is whistling above his bed.

  
This is his reality. She doesn't want that. Won't ever want that. He is cold and buzzed alone in a drafty tower while she's happy and warm with her friends and a man better than him.

  
He doesn't want to think about that.

  
His eyes burn and his throat is tight.

  
He doesn't want to think about that, either.

**Author's Note:**

> Meanwhile: the Inquisitior and Krem get increasingly drunk, and Krem tells increasingly outrageous stories of the Charger's past fights. They continue home to their respective rooms.  
> also posted to my tumblr: [neosolas ](http://hawkegirl1993.tumblr.com/post/111554253644/keep-running-like-the-world-never-ends-summary-a)


End file.
